http://www.nola.com/business/index.ssf/2017/03/payless_closing_shoe_stores_ba.html
Another store goes into bankruptcy.
I've never found their shoes to be all that comfortable, except for a pair of sandals that lasted about one year.
Likely another casualty of Target and Wal-Mart.
We bought their shoes a few times back in the 80s. They never lasted much more than a few months. Hence, we stopped going there.
Quote from: formulanone on March 28, 2017, 11:51:18 AM
I've never found their shoes to be all that comfortable, except for a pair of sandals that lasted about one year.
Likely another casualty of Target and Wal-Mart.
Well I can see the "Blame Amazon" and "Blame Ebay" come into play though along with Wal-Mart for chains going away though.
Quote from: bing101 on March 28, 2017, 01:44:59 PM
Quote from: formulanone on March 28, 2017, 11:51:18 AM
I've never found their shoes to be all that comfortable, except for a pair of sandals that lasted about one year.
Likely another casualty of Target and Wal-Mart.
Well I can see the "Blame Amazon" and "Blame Ebay" come into play though along with Wal-Mart for chains going away though.
Are that many people buying $20 shoes on Zappos, eBay, and Amazon?
I can gauge shirts well enough, but pants and shoes are two items in which I'd like to try on first; sizes and fit always seem to differ between brands or even stylistic differences. The only exception I make is if I want the exact same model/style from the brand's lineup.
Amazon, Ebay and Walmart are easy to blame.
Doesn't explain how any store from the 1990s and prior closed though. And there were a lot of them.
It's kind of a cycle in retail...
Get into the marketplace in a niche, expand as quickly as possible, and then watch as your niche slowly gets eroded by competitors until your store dies.
The stores with long term staying power seem to be more of an anomaly than the ones that don't.
Quote from: AsphaltPlanet on March 28, 2017, 02:36:21 PM
It's kind of a cycle in retail...
Get into the marketplace in a niche, expand as quickly as possible, and then watch as your niche slowly gets eroded by competitors until your store dies.
The stores with long term staying power seem to be more of an anomaly than the ones that don't.
Well, in Payless's case, I suspect the quality of the shoes might be just a little bit of the problem.
Quote from: Brandon on March 28, 2017, 03:42:29 PM
Quote from: AsphaltPlanet on March 28, 2017, 02:36:21 PM
It's kind of a cycle in retail...
Get into the marketplace in a niche, expand as quickly as possible, and then watch as your niche slowly gets eroded by competitors until your store dies.
The stores with long term staying power seem to be more of an anomaly than the ones that don't.
Well, in Payless's case, I suspect the quality of the shoes might be just a little bit of the problem.
Yep. Stopped shopping there some years ago. Back in the early 2000s, they actually had a good pair or two of basic brown leather shoes that were decent. By 2010 or so, there was a noticeable decline on their quality. The pressure to go cheap was just too great and now they're paying the price.
http://www.wtae.com/article/payless-shoe-source-files-for-bankruptcy-protection/9234872
Update for Payless.
No surprise they are quickly vacating 2 Northern Ohio Malls that are on death watch (Midway Mall/Elyria & Chapel Hill Mall/Akron) already. Then again, their "alternative stores" are only about 5-10 minutes away so those can also be blamed on over-saturation.
I'd take some of the news articles reporting the closures with a grain of salt. The coverage here in Albany claimed some stores were closing that aren't; they must not have noticed that the columns to the right say "shop here now" and not "closing store", so for now, I'd go with the official list:
http://22184-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Microsite-Store-Closing-Doc-3.31.17.pdf
Their store here in Lewisville is looking awful. The front is extremely deteriorated. it looks abandoned even though its still open.
This sucks. Payless is about the only brick-and-mortar place I can find shoes in my size at a price that doesn't completely break the bank. (Trying to find shoes in a women's 12 is a pain.)
I checked the list and the one in Grandview's shutting down, which really sucks. Least the one on Meyer's looking like it's going to stay open.
Yeah, it's amazing. I wear size 9, which fortunately isn't too rare, but it still feels like the vast majority of the really cute stuff is sizes 6-7 and below. Given that feet tend to get bigger as one ages, I'm NOT looking forwards to the effects of that.
Their shoes were crap. I stopped going a LONG time ago. At least Famous Footwear had name brands. IIRC, Payless was all house brands.
Considering that their name is literally "pay less", I would think that people looking for expensive name brand status icons shoes aren't the target customer. I've never had an issue with them. It's them or Target/WalMart; department stores are twice as expensive.